Social Networking and Liars on the Internet

The blogosphere is aghast that a popular blog, Libertarian Girl, was actually written by 30-something guy who adopted the personality of a fun 22 year old girl, in order to boost readership. His admission and comments on the experience are here.

Does it really matter? Surely the quality of his comments should speak for themselves (or not). On the other hand, as I mentioned discussing Spengler's column, we are inevitably influenced by knowing the identity of the author of a particular opinion. In Spengler's case, because the content is provocative and intelligent, anonymity adds to his credibility.

All this is intriguing in terms of social networking theory and evolutionary biology. I'm great fan of Amotz Zahavi's Handicap Principle, which argues that (1) In any biological context involving communication, 'liars' will arise and that (2) This provides the substrate for mechanisms to evolve which guarantee truth in communication. The 'Libertarian Girl affair' shows that part 1 of his theory applies to the blogosphere. It will be interesting to see how it evolves to deal with the challenge.